


Ebb and Flow

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-26
Updated: 2010-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home isn't always easy, but it <i>is</i> home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ebb and Flow

“You’re not ready,” she said, trying hard to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

“That’s because I’m not going.” Jack was lying on the sofa, dressed in old sweats and an even older USAF T-shirt. His feet hung over the arm of the couch, and a bottle of Bud dangled from his right hand. He was watching a sports round-up show with the sound down low.

Sometimes, he couldn’t stand noise.

Sara bit her lip and clutched her purse hard. “It’s just a poker game, Jack. Bob and Cally are expecting us.”

Jack took a long swig of beer and kept his eyes on the TV.

 “Cally will have cooked dinner,” Sara tried again. Still the loaded silence. “I asked you. I _asked_ if you wanted to go.” She tried hard to rein in her anger. Anger got her nowhere when Jack was like this. And Jack had been like this since he came home ten days ago.

“And I shouldn’t have said yes,” Jack said, his voice even. “And you should have known that.” Again with the diffidence. The difficult, unreasonable response. It had become, what was the phrase? SOP? Standard operating procedure. Yeah, well. It could go screw itself.

Jack winced, said, “You go. It’s you they want to see anyway.” There was a half-note of apology in there somewhere. He put the empty beer bottle on the table. He hadn’t looked at Sara once during the conversation.

_OK. If that’s what you want ..._

“Fine. There’s pizza in the freezer and beer in the fridge. I’ll try not to wake you when I come in.”

She picked up a sweater from the armchair and swept the car keys up from the coffee table.

She tried hard not to slam the front door behind her.

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

 

Sara woke later than usual the next morning, blinking owlishly into the sunshine that painted stripes on the bedroom wall. Against all the odds, it had been a good night. Bob and Cally said they understood why Jack stayed home. Maybe they understood too well. Bob was ex-military.

Sara sat up in bed, head thumping a little from oversleeping. Rubbing a hand over her face, she gathered her thoughts. She’d talked more about Jack than she should have done last night in retrospect, partly she suspected in reaction to what was going on with Jack.

And there it was.

What _was _going on with Jack?

Ten days after shipping home and none of the tension had left him. Most times when he came back, she could see him letting it go little by little, day by day, as he adjusted to life at home. Life with her. This time, he was still whipcord tight, in body and mind.

He wasn’t sleeping and, when he did, he had nightmares that left him covered in sweat, disoriented and snappy, and unwilling or unable to accept any comfort from her.

Sara leaned up on one elbow and watched him sleep. It was after 9 a.m. He never slept this late normally. He must have had another bad night.

He looked so vulnerable in sleep, the way he never looked awake. The strong lines of his face softened into beautiful, relaxed masculinity. The stress fell away. The urge to touch him, to stroke his face, gently kiss his lips, was overwhelming, but he didn’t want that. Not when he was like this. Not when he was withdrawn and defensive.

She wanted to talk to him, and she wanted him to listen. And right now, he wasn’t hearing her.

“Screw it,” she whispered, clenching her hand into a fist to stop from stroking his hair.

This had to stop.

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

 

Two days later, a propos of nothing, Sara said, “OK. Pack a case. We’re going to Maine.”

Jack looked at her over the breakfast table with tired, wary eyes. “The tiling in the bathroom needs finishing,” he said, nibbling a slice of toast. He hadn’t eaten much again. He was on his third mug of coffee though.

 “Yes, it does. But it’s waited damn near a year. Another couple of months won’t make any difference.”  A couple of months was a conservative estimate. The chances were he’d be gone again in a matter of weeks and who knew for how long. She never knew how long, or where, and she couldn’t ask, so she sucked it up and got on with her life while she waited. Like the bathroom tiles waited.

“Come on, Jack. Fresh air, long walks,” Sara swallowed the last of her scrambled eggs, leaned towards him, and added teasingly, “Fishing.”

That brought a wan smile. It was barely there. But it was a smile nonetheless.

A small but notable victory.

“You’ve already made the damned reservations, haven’t you?” he said, sounding resigned but maybe not too unhappy.

Sara just smiled. She got up to clear the table. “Flight’s at three. And make sure you pack those blue shorts. You look so sexy in them.”

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

 

Jack slept through the drive to the airport. He must have been exhausted. He never usually let her drive.

His inability to rest had been more than evident in the early-hours wanderings around the house that followed the nightmares. She never got up to keep him company and she never commented on his gray, lined face the morning after. This was Jack, post-mission. This was how he was.

But this time, somehow, it was different. Worse. He wasn’t just distant, he was coldly angry and she was a little afraid for him. Afraid of what had happened this time out to leave him this messed up.

He slept on the plane, too. She wondered if, for Jack, the hum of the engines was like a lullaby to a child; familiar and comforting. Whatever, she was just glad he was getting some rest.

She leaned her head back against the plane seat and closed her eyes, remembering their first visit to a little cove on the Maine coast when they were dating. They’d stuck a pin in the map and ended up there. They’d only been seeing each other for eight months but they’d been newly in love and happy there. She hoped they’d be happy there again. She hoped he’d hear her.

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

 

The bed and breakfast place was beautiful, with polished wood floors and antique furniture in every room. It was secluded, quiet and peaceful and Sara loved it.

And, after three days of clear, salty air, a fresh cleansing wind and long walks in the woodland and on the beach, sometimes with her and sometimes alone, Jack had begun to come home.

The fourth night, Jack pulled her to him after a long, hot, shared bath and made love to her on the patchwork quilt that covered the four-poster bed. He came too soon but he called out her name when he shuddered his release. That was something. That was a lot, given that he hadn’t touched her in that way since he came back. Then he used gentle fingers and a gentler mouth to bring her to orgasm. She couldn’t be quiet ­- she never could ­­- and she tasted herself when he kissed her hard to muffle her cries. Then they both laughed at having to keep the noise down, like teenagers making out while their parents were in the house.

They slept late the next morning and woke to warm sunshine filtering into the room. They made love again, slow and intense and loving.

Jack was home.

In the late afternoon, they took a walk along the beach. It was mostly rocky but, when the tide went out, it left a big stretch of sand. There was still a relaxing, residual warmth from the late summer day and the off-shore breeze tantalized with its slight chill. Sara felt the setting sun’s rays soak into her and watched them work their magic on Jack.

His shoulders lost the tension that plagued him under stress. His facial muscles were at what she thought of as parade rest. He could hide the horrors that haunted his mind, but he could never hide from her when it came to body language. She knew him too damned well after five years of marriage.

Sometimes when she looked at him, she felt an ache of wanting that was soul-deep, rooted in her marrow. She’d fallen in love with the kind-hearted and gentle man who lay hidden beneath the military armor.

Sometimes, she felt she was losing that man to the growing demands and rigors of his work.

Sometimes, she hated the Air Force.

Right now, it was hard to hate anything. She could still feel the delicious lassitude in her body from their earlier loving. Jack loved her, he was with her and they were together in this beautiful place.

These days away were precious moments out of time when she could reclaim her Jack; funny, tender, at times overwhelmingly affectionate Jack.

“Thanks,” he said, out of nowhere, linking his fingers through hers as they walked along the near-deserted sands. She swung her sandals to and fro with her right hand.

“For what?”

“Lots of things. Not asking questions you know I can’t answer. Bringing us here. Letting the bathroom wait.”

Sara smiled. “Yeah, well, don’t think you’re getting a total pass on that, buddy. Next leave, the tiles are all yours.”

“Deal,” he said, sealing the bargain by raising their joined hands and kissing her fingers. She shivered. They were pretty much alone out here. Sex on the beach wasn’t just a cocktail and it wasn’t just for hormone-ridden teenagers. It was a private and long-held fantasy and was likely to stay that way, but it made her smile to think of it.

They walked in silence for a while, pacing each other. Jack skipped a couple of stones. Sara called him on his lack of prowess.

 

They strolled on until the beach began a long, gentle curve that led to a point with its own lighthouse. They stepped between wooden groynes revealed by the retreating tide. Half covered in seaweed, they were old and permanent and strangely majestic. At the base of each was a perfect circle of still, clear water. Sara pulled Jack to a halt and peered into one. Tentatively, she dipped her toes. The water was warm. She stirred up a little whirlpool and watched the sand spiral wildly until it settled again.

Jack wandered off and picked up a stick, which he used to draw two perfectly-shaped intersecting hearts. Jesus. So corny. But Sara lit up inside.

“Pretty good, huh?” he said, standing back to admire his handiwork. He added an S to one heart and J to the other, letters that would have made a calligrapher proud.

“Hmm. Not bad. Could be better,” she said.

“I fail to see how,” Jack replied with a faux indignation that made her grin.

Sara took the stick from him and drew a tiny third heart that intersected them both, then raised her eyes to his. And she saw the very second he got it.

He swallowed. Hard. Then broke into the biggest, goofiest grin she had ever seen from him.

He heard her.

“Oh yeah,” he said, “that’s much better,” voice breaking slightly on the last word.

He pulled her in for the gentlest kiss, then swept her off her feet, round and round, making her dizzy. She felt like a young girl as the wind caught her hair and plastered it across her face, the whip of strands stinging slightly, bringing the moment into sharp relief.

When her feet landed safely again on the cool sand, the rest of her stayed in mid-spin, happy, free and never wanting the day to end. She breathed in the air, breathed in every drop of emotion and captured it all in her heart, locked it away for the anxious days and nights when Jack went away.

She’d always carry a part of him with her now.

He put his arm round her shoulder, drawing her to his side with unusual tenderness and she smiled to herself.

“I won’t break,” she said, laughing. God, she loved him.

They walked on, and Sara thought about the hearts in the sand and the tide that would wash them away.

But they had been there, once, and that was enough.


End file.
